Beam wobbling for increased downlink coverage and capacity

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for reducing signal interference within a cellular radio system to increase both coverage and capacity. The method and apparatus include altering the direction of beams within cell sectors is among discrete angular positions according to a predetermined, cyclic pattern. The predetermined, cyclic pattern varies in a group of adjacent cell sectors such that inter-cell interference is significantly reduced or eliminated by rotating at a different cycle the beams in adjacent cells. This discrete, angular movement of beams provides for downlink transmissions to be timed in such a way (i.e., scheduled) such that transmission to a user will occur in accordance with the beam and time slot having the best carrier to interference (C/I) ratio for that user.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is in continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/679,329 filed Feb. 27, 2007, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/673,483 filed Sep. 30, 2003, the disclosures ofwhich are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of cellular radio systemtransmissions. More specifically, the present invention relates tooverlapping cellular sectors within such cellular radio systems and waysto improve coverage and capacity in the downlink transmissions of suchoverlapping cellular sectors.

2. Description of the Prior Art

The rapid growth of telecommunications is perhaps no more acute than inthe area of wireless communications. Mobile phones have become astandard personal appliance in nearly every country in the world. Insome remote and rural places where the public switched telephone network(PSTN) infrastructure has been slow to advance, wireless communicationshave even surpassed the PSTN through the use of fixed wireless accesstechnologies. Regardless of whether such wireless communications havebeen fixed or mobile, they have represented an unprecedented growth incellular radio system traffic. Such ever-increasing traffic of more andmore wireless users has created several problems for network operatorsincluding, but not limited to, significant interference among radiosignals from the user equipment (UE) and the base stations (BS).Interference impacts upon many aspects of a cellular radio systemperformance, and it is therefore desirable to minimize suchinterference.

One basic solution to reduce signal interference between several UE andBS is simply to physically arrange each BS such that transmissions fromone do not interfere with the other. Such a solution is not verypractical for the reason that placing a BS in such a manner relative toanother BS will almost inevitably lead to “dead zones” within which noadequate signal exists. From an interference-avoidance perspective, thisis fine. However, any UE within the dead zone will suffer from reducedperformance, handoff failures, or outright lack of a carrier signal.Accordingly, most cellular radio systems overlap cell sectors toincrease the system coverage. Indeed, beams from the same BS may bedesigned to overlap each other. This can cause interference and reducethe system capacity significantly.

Other prior art solutions to improve coverage include: (a) soft-handoff(SHO); (b) dynamic interference avoidance; (c) fractional reuse; and (d)tiering. There is a large penalty in capacity because these schemes useadditional resources from other cells. In addition, the schemes such as(a) and (b) are dependent on the availability of fast communicationbetween base stations. SHO needs central processing of packets (i.e.,frame synchronization for traffic and central MAC) that is difficult toimplement under a futuristic distributed architecture. Moreover,per-user throughput distribution becomes better under these schemes, butmay not be sufficient.

What is needed therefore is a solution to signal interference within acellular radio system that is beneficial to both coverage and capacityand that can be implemented under a distributed architecture withoutrequiring dynamic co-ordination among BSs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for reducingsignal interference within a cellular radio system to increase bothcoverage and capacity. In accordance with the present invention, thedirection of beams within cell sectors is altered among discrete angularpositions according to a predetermined, cyclic pattern. Thepredetermined, cyclic pattern varies in a group of adjacent cell sectorssuch that a time-varying interference pattern is created in thegeographical area. Two mobiles located in two different areas in thesame sector would undergo different interference patterns depending onhow they are located relative to the discrete movement of theinterfering beams. This discrete, angular movement of beams is termed“beam wobbling” herein. Beam wobbling provides for downlinktransmissions to be timed (i.e., scheduled) such that transmission to aUE will occur only when the beam placement is optimal for that UE. Inother words, beam wobbling of the present invention enables downlinktransmission to a UE to occur in accordance with the beam and time slothaving the best carrier to interference (C/I) ratio for that UE subjectto the competing scheduling requirements of the different mobiles.

The present invention seeks to significantly increase both coverage andcapacity of a cellular system by substantially reducing interference. Inparticular, the coverage of wireless systems is very poor at the cellboundaries so that it requires multi-cell transmission techniques thatimpact capacity and needs extra level of co-ordination, i.e., morehardware and central controlling. In typical wireless systems, there isan unfair distribution of throughput among users that results in ahigher cost of capacity for the services requiring equal throughput,e.g., voice and real time video. This invention provides a fairerdistribution of available rates for the mobiles than other schemesmaking it suitable for equal throughput applications. However, when anunfair distribution is allowed, the artificially created C/I variationcould better support such services by increasing the capacitysignificantly. Thus, the present invention provides a good multi-QoSsolution. Moreover, the present invention could be implemented in adistributed architecture to increase coverage and capacity that is thepreferred architecture for future generation wireless access systems.

In a first aspect of the present invention, there is included a methodof operating a base station of a cellular radio system to serve acoverage area. The method comprises: (a) for each of a plurality ofsuccessive time intervals, moving a downlink beam to a respectiveangular position associated with the time interval such that thedownlink beam moves in a cyclic repeated pattern; and (b) during atleast one of the successive time intervals, transmitting on the downlinkbeam to at least one user terminal located in the downlink beam.

In a second aspect of the present invention, there is included, a basestation for a cellular radio system. The base station comprises: atleast one transmitter; and at least one antenna system coupled to thetransmitter; the at least one transmitter and the at least one antennasystem being co-operable: (a) for each of a plurality of successive timeintervals, moving a downlink beam to a respective angular positionassociated with the time interval such that the downlink beam moves in acyclic repeated pattern; and (b) during at least one of the successivetime intervals, transmitting on the downlink beam to at least one userterminal located in the downlink beam.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of three beams of an example directional (3sector, 9-beam) antenna system for use with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a example multi-cell system in accordancewith the present invention

FIG. 3 is a representation of beam wobbling in accordance with thepresent invention.

FIG. 4 is a table representing four time slots the related rotationangle combinations for the representation in FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a table showing the combinations of rotation angles for atwo-cell, four rotational position arrangement.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of a four-cell example of beam wobbling inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a table of a set of interfering positions that corresponds toFIG. 6.

FIG. 8 is a diagram based on the information within FIG. 7 thatindicates the best and next best time slots.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The invention will be described for the purposes of illustration only inconnection with certain embodiments; however, it is to be understoodthat other objects and advantages of the present invention will be madeapparent by the following description of the drawings according to thepresent invention. While a preferred embodiment is disclosed, this isnot intended to be limiting. Rather, the general principles set forthherein are considered to be merely illustrative of the scope of thepresent invention and it is to be further understood that numerouschanges may be made without straying from the scope of the presentinvention.

The present invention includes a beam rotation scheme for the downlinkof a wireless system using multiple directional beams/antennas (e.g.,tri-sector or 9-beam). Such rotations in the adjacent cells are done indifferent cycles so that the users in the overlapping areas observereduced interference in some time slots for which the system cantransmit to them. When a beam rotates, the mobiles in the edge of thebeam coverage area will be placed in the middle of the beam thusimproving the signal level. Similarly, the signal power from theinterfering beams will also be improved or reduced. Since beams in theadjacent cells have different beam wobbling pattern, a mobileexperiences all the combinations of beam rotation possibilities, one ofwhich would give the best C/I for transmission. Overall, substantiallyall the users can improve their C/I value by selecting a time slot thatavoids interference. This will improve both coverage and capacitysignificantly. The rotations can be improved by existing beam formingmethods. While it should clearly be understood that many factors, suchas beam pattern, number of sectors, modulation, . . . etc. are possible,the results show significant capacity and coverage improvements with,for example, a half beam width rotation with a nine beam asymmetricantennae. With symmetric antennae and finer angles of rotation (e.g.,quarter width) even better improvements are possible.

When multiple beams transmit in the downlink, the mobiles in the beamoverlapping area get a higher level of interference from the adjacentbeam. Therefore, if all the nine beams in the cell are rotated by a halfbeam width, the users originally located in the overlapping areas willbe placed in the middle of the beams after rotation and their C/I willbe improved significantly. For example, the edge to middle antenna gaindifference in the nine-beam antenna system used for typical system is8-10 dB. Those users can then use these time slots for transmission.Similarly, beams will overlap with the adjacent cell beams and themobiles located at the edge of the cell will have high interference fromthe adjacent cell beams. When the adjacent beams are also rotated in asimilar cyclic pattern, a group of users will have their interferencereduced thus increasing their C/I value. So, those users can use thetime slot during which the adjacent cell is in the rotated position.

Each UE could measure the pilot power of different beams or/and the C/Iof different time slots and report the best time slots and thecorresponding C/I of the beam with the strongest pilot. In order toavoid the impact of temporary fading the readings are averaged overseveral time slots. The scheduler in the BS is to use these C/I valuesand allocate times slots to the UEs according to service requirementsand the C/I values.

In general, in all the illustrations of beam patterns herein are shownneglecting slow fading for simplicity. It should be understood that, inpractice, these boundaries are not clear, although C/I based selectionand scheduling and the associated gains are still valid.

FIG. 1 illustrates a directional 3-sector antenna of 120-degree coveragehaving beam widths of 40 degrees. The beams overlap at a portion of thecoverage area. Several UE are shown in the beam paths at variouslocations. It should be readily understood that the UE in the area ofbeam overlap would experience interference to a greater degree than theUE located at the center of a beam. By rotating the beams by 20 degrees,the beams can be better directed to the UE situated in the overlappingareas. The present invention uses a deterministic rotation pattern torotate the beams and transmit to the UE through the best beam positionrelative to that UE. The 20-degree rotation scheme with four patternshas been shown to produce significant coverage and capacity gains. Whenthis is used with 10-degree rotations, larger gains are possible andwhen used for tri-sector systems where antenna gains change by a largeamount within the coverage area, significantly larger gains arepossible.

In such a pattern as illustrated in FIG. 1, the situation is fairlystraightforward in that UE10, UE11, and UE12 are located in the centerof beams B10, B11, and B12 respectively. UE13 is located at the overlapbetween beams B10 and B11 and UE14 is located at the overlap betweenbeams B11 and B12. Rotation of the beams B10, B11, and B12 by a half ofthe beam width (i.e., 20 degrees) will result in UE13 being located inthe center of beam B10 and UE14 being located in the center of UE14.Timing downlink transmissions to occur only when a UE is located in thecenter of the beam is the ideal. However, any location of the UE thatyields relative improvements in C/I for that UE provides an importantimprovement according to the present invention. In other words, thelocation of a UE to which a downlink transmission is preferably effectedmay occur with more than one beam placement. Assuming that UE15 isserved by a beam in an adjacent cell, the rotation of the beam B11 willmaximize its interference. Thus, the transmission to UE15 should avoidthe rotation position of the beam B11. In multi-cell systems, thesimplicity of FIG. 1 is insufficient.

FIG. 2 shows a typical multi-cell system with 7 cells C1-C7 that usesthe beam wobbling in accordance with the present invention. In thisexample, the seven cells use a respective cell pattern A, B, C, or D.That is to say, the rotation pattern is re-used in such a manner as toavoid having the same pattern in adjacent cells. Seven cells and fourpatterns are shown for purposes of illustration and any other number ofpatterns and reuse scheme could be used. Patterns B, C, and D areduplicated as they do not overlap or otherwise interfere with oneanother due to their spacing across cell C1. In this way, inter-cellinterference can be avoided by rotating the beams in the neighbouringcells with a different cycle. Moreover, the multi-cell pattern may bere-used in an adjacent system. Because a significant portion ofinterference comes only from adjacent cells, there is a large advantagein changing the rotation patterns of the adjacent cells.

Within a cell system as shown in FIG. 2 that embodies the invention,beams change direction among discrete angular positions according to apredetermined, cyclic pattern. In order for this to occur, all theadjacent beams should have orthogonal position changing patterns. Thisnecessitates that the number of orthogonal patterns should be largerthan the number of potential adjacent cells. For instance, if tworotation positions and four different changing patterns are used, therewill be sixteen different beam position combinations within the system.Accordingly, each UE would experience a different C/I in each of thesesixteen time slots. Advantageously, a UE can select the beam and timeslot with the best C/I. When a large number of users are in the system,then time slots could be used in an efficient manner.

FIG. 3 shows an example representation of beam wobbling in accordancewith the present invention. Here, it is assumed that there are ninebeams per cell and three beams per sector, as also seen for cell C1 ofFIG. 2. Beam wobbling in this example uses two rotation positions foreach beam. At a beam width of 40 degrees, the beam width divided by tworesults in rotation angles of 0 degrees and 20 degrees being used. Forsimplification, FIG. 3 shows only beams A0 and B0 and their rotatedpositions A20 and B20 for cell C1 and beams C0 and D0 and their rotatedpositions C20 and D20 for the second cell C2. In this way, four timeslots TS1, TS2, TS3, and TS4 may be obtained and the related rotationangle combinations are as shown in tabular format in FIG. 4.

In instances of two cells and four rotational positions, it would benecessary for sixteen time slots. FIG. 5 shows in tabular format thecombinations of rotation angles for the two-cell, four rotationalposition arrangement.

In situations where multiple cells exist, the cells can be divided intofour groups as discussed before. Each of the groups would have the samerotation pattern. That is to say, the rotation pattern would be re-usedin such a manner as to avoid having the same pattern in adjacent cells.For two rotation steps, sixteen time slots would be needed. Similar toFIGS. 4 and 5, time slot 0 would be where all the groups are notrotated—i.e., a pattern {0, 0, 0, 0}. Time slot 1 would be where onlythe fourth group was rotated—i.e., a pattern {0, 0, 0, 20}. Time slot 2would be where only the third group was rotated—i.e., a pattern {0, 0,20, 0}. This would continue until time slot 16 would be where all thegroups are rotated—i.e., a pattern {20, 20, 20, 20}.

FIG. 6 illustrates a four-cell example of beam wobbling in accordancewith the present invention. Two rotations (N=2) are again assumed alsoin this example, and only the bens and/or rotations of relevance to thissector are shown. Thus, FIG. 6 illustrates one beam from each cell,denoted with A1, B1, C1 and respectively D1 in solid thick lines,representing the original position of the beams. The respective rotatedvariants A1R, B1R, C1R and D1R are shown in dotted lines. Also shown isa second beam D2 for cell D in a thinner, solid line, and the rotatedvariants A2R, B2R, C2R and respectively D2R of a second beam for allcells, in thinner dotted lines. UE1 through UE5 are located throughoutthe system of cells shown. It is clear from the FIG. 6 that only acertain beam position is optimal for any of UE1 through UE5. Further,due to the relative positional closeness of UE5 and UE4, for example, itis apparent that the interference becomes a significant factor forconsideration. It is precisely in such instances where multiple beamsand multiple users congregate when the value of the inventive beamwobbling is most readily apparent. By precisely timing downlinktransmissions during a period when a given user is in the most suitablebeam position, interference reduction can be maximized.

Situations of interference are clear from FIG. 6. For example, beams D1and C1 do not overlap during downlink transmission such thatinterference is not likely an issue. However, beams A1 and C1significantly overlap with one another as well as encompass threegeographically dispersed users UE1, UE2, and UE4. Clearly, a downlinktransmission to UE1 by beam A1 without any compensating factors (e.g.,reduced transmit power) will interfere with a transmission to UE4 inbeam C1. Further, UE2 will be caught between two equally poor positionsshould beams A1 and C1 simultaneously try to reach it. The presentinvention addresses at least the aforementioned problems such that theinterfering beams act as if they were aware of the interfered UE andavoid transmissions during the allocated time slot. Advantageously, thattime slot is not wasted because the beam will instead transmit to adifferent user in a different direction. This significantly improvesoverall system capacity. Beam wobbling solves this automatically withoutany feedback among base stations.

In FIG. 7, there is shown in tabular format the interferences that mayaffect the users for the positions illustrated on FIG. 6. Differingusers will of course have differing interferer combinations. It isevident that there are beam orientation combinations where the user canbe reach with reduced interference, and that there are orientationswhere transmission to a certain user should be avoided. By providing atime slot for each combination, and enabling transmission to a certainuser (more precisely location) when the respective combination oforientations is favourable, a large number of users (e.g., 400 per beam)could be accommodated across the time slots.

FIG. 8 is a diagram that indicates the rotation status for one of thebeams for each cell of FIG. 7, where the original position is shown by a‘high’ value and the rotated position by a ‘low’ value. FIG. 8 alsoshows the best time slot (solid) and the next best time slots(patterned) for the user placement illustrated in the example of FIG. 7.Best time slots are the time slots when all the interfering beams have aweak signal and the serving beam has its best rotation position.However, depending on the competing requirements of the incoming data tobe transmitted to the UEs, some users may not be able to get the besttime slot and could be allocated the next best time slots. As can beseen, for UE1 the best position is when all beams A1, B1 and C1 fromcells A, B and C have the original (initial) orientation and the beamform from cell D is rotated (D1R). The next best timeslot is when cell Drotates its beam to the original orientation D1, but this will result ina slight increase in the interference. So the patterned time slot is thenext best time slot for UE1.

The beam wobbling of the invention is further enhanced by the use of ascheduler. As suggested above, a user will have available several timeslots with different C/I values. The scheduler can use these changes inC/I values to efficiently support multiple quality of service (QoS)requirements. For example, time slot allocations can be changeddynamically according to QoS requirements. This means that the physicallayer will provides several options of transmissions to all the users.When physical layer provides such an option, the cost to the network isminimal because a higher layer could not do such allocationsefficiently. Moreover, low C/I users can use better time slots toimprove coverage and enable higher equal throughput capacity. The e beamwobbling according to the invention generates known fading with no C/Ireporting impact. In other words, the present invention allows for FadeSelective Scheduling (FSS) schemes such as proportional-fair (PF)schemes, which can be used to increase capacity when equal throughputservices are not required. It should be understood that the C/I increaseoccurs within the present invention by avoiding specific rotationpositions of other beams.

In operation, the present invention provides significant coverage andcapacity gains and even larger gains for the multi-QoS systems (e.g.,voice/data). The present invention is suitable for future generationdistributed architectures (automated interference avoidance withoutcentralized control). While synchronization with the base station isstill needed, there is no need for dynamic coordination.

Still further, the present invention can utilize purposely created‘fading’ for even larger capacity gains possible. This is more likelywith other schedulers (e.g., PF). This is evident from FIG. 4 wherefading to reduce the reach of beam A1 to encompass only UE1 wouldsignificantly alter the system capacity in terms of cell A or cell Coptimally transmitting to UE2 or UE4. Such fading aspect is consideredwell within the intended scope of the present invention. As well, itshould be understood that there is flexibility for the scheduler toperform better QoS handling, i.e., physical layer multiple QoS solution.

The present invention may also be used together with power controlwithin the slot period to provide an efficient voice and data solution.Further, wireless local area networks with spatially switched beams maybenefit from the present inventive beam wobbling.

It should be understood that the preferred embodiments mentioned hereare merely illustrative of the present invention. Numerous variations indesign and use of the present invention may be contemplated in view ofthe following claims without straying from the intended scope and fieldof the invention herein disclosed.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of operating a base station of acellular radio system to serve a coverage area, the method comprising:(a) for each of a plurality of successive time intervals, moving adownlink beam to a respective angular position associated with the timeinterval such that the downlink beam moves in a cyclic repeated pattern;and (b) during at least one of the successive time intervals,transmitting on the downlink beam to at least one user terminal locatedin the downlink beam.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cyclicrepeated pattern is orthogonal to a cyclic repeated pattern of movementof at least one downlink beam of at least one adjacent base station. 3.The method of claim 1, wherein: the downlink beam has an angular width;and the respective angular positions are spaced by an angle less thanthe angular width of the downlink beam.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the angular width of the downlink beam and the respectiveangular positions are such that downlink beam covers an entire angularrange of the coverage area over each repetition of the cyclic repeatedpattern.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the downlink beam has plurallobes.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the coverage area is a sectorof a cell.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein: each successive timeinterval comprises a plurality of time slots; and transmitting on thedownlink beam during at least one of the successive time intervalscomprises transmitting on the downlink beam to selected user terminalson respective time slots within the at least one successive timeinterval.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising selecting a timeslot for transmission on a downlink beam to a selected user terminalbased on carrier to interference measurements of the selected userterminal.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein selecting a time slot fortransmission on a downlink beam to a selected user terminal is furtherbased on carrier to interference measurements of at least one other userterminal served by at least one adjacent base station.
 10. The method ofclaim 7, further comprising applying power control to the downlink beamwithin at least one time slot.
 11. A base station for a cellular radiosystem, the base station comprising: at least one transmitter; and atleast one antenna system coupled to the transmitter; the at least onetransmitter and the at least one antenna system being co-operable: (a)for each of a plurality of successive time intervals, moving a downlinkbeam to a respective angular position associated with the time intervalsuch that the downlink beam moves in a cyclic repeated pattern; and (b)during at least one of the successive time intervals, transmitting onthe downlink beam to at least one user terminal located in the downlinkbeam.
 12. The base station of claim 11, wherein the cyclic repeatedpattern is orthogonal to a cyclic repeated pattern of movement of atleast one downlink beam of at least one adjacent base station.
 13. Thebase station of claim 11, wherein: the downlink beam has an angularwidth; and the respective angular positions are spaced by an angle lessthan the angular width of the downlink beam.
 14. The base station ofclaim 13, wherein the angular width of the downlink beam and therespective angular positions are such that downlink beam covers anentire angular range of the coverage area over each repetition of thecyclic repeated pattern.
 15. The base station of claim 11, wherein thedownlink beam has plural lobes.
 16. The base station of claim 11,wherein the coverage area is a sector of a cell.
 17. The base station ofclaim 11, wherein: each successive time interval comprises a pluralityof time slots; and the transmitter is operable to transmit on thedownlink beam during at least one of the successive time intervals bytransmitting on the downlink beam to selected user terminals onrespective time slots within the at least one successive time interval.18. The base station of claim 17, wherein the at least one transmitteris further operable to select a time slot for transmission on a downlinkbeam to a selected user terminal based on carrier to interferencemeasurements of the selected user terminal.
 19. The base station ofclaim 18, wherein the at least one transmitter is operable to select atime slot for transmission on a downlink beam to a selected userterminal based on carrier to interference measurements of at least oneother user terminal served by at least one adjacent base station. 20.The base station of claim 17, wherein the at least one transmitter isfurther operable to apply power control to the downlink beam within atleast one time slot.